Economy

In a variation on a popular saying in real estate — "The three most important factors are location, location and location" — the State of Connecticut, since Democrat Dannel Malloy became Governor five years ago, has employed three strategies to balance its budget: raising taxes, raising taxes, and raising taxes. The Nutmeg State's next planned round of tax increases includes a proposal pushed by…

For the past month, the conventional wisdom about the U.S. economy has been that consumer spending and "(not really) robust" job growth will continue to prop up the economy, even as weaknesses in manufacturing, trade and other areas continue to present problems. President Obama bragged in early March that the economy is "pretty darned good now." Today, the first of those two pillars got pulled.…

Conservatives have objected in droves to a remark President Obama made this past week during his visit to Argentina. Addressing a gathering of young adults, Obama said, “In the past there’s been a sharp division…between capitalist and communist or socialist…but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works.” The right’s hostile response, contended The…

As noted in my previous post, the press is determined that the world not learn of profound statements made by world leaders it despises. The specific reference was to Israeli Prime Mininster Benjamin Netanyahu's five-word admonishment to those who believe that some accommodation can be reached with Islamic terrorists: "Terrorists Have No Resolvable Grievances." Meanwhile, the press protects…

In almost identical fashion to their hysteria concerning the defeat of transgender bathroom bill in Houston from November, Thursday’s CBS Evening News painted quite the doomsday scenario for Georgia and North Carolina over their respective religious freedom bills as the newscast argued they could lead to massive boycotts and the loss of billions of dollars in business.

In early 2008, Barack Obama annoyed many liberals when he said that President Reagan (but not President Clinton) had “changed the trajectory of America.” New York magazine’s Chait no doubt will irritate many conservatives by suggesting Obama has done the same over the past seven-plus years. In a piece for the March 21 issue, Chait commented, “Obama hasn’t so much moved from the center to the left…

Today's report on February's new-home sales from the Census Bureau showed seasonally adjusted declines in three of the nation's four regions and an increase in the West. The Associated Press and reporter Josh Boak, displaying brazenness which might have even embarrassed the scribes at Pravda during the worst days of the Soviet Union, concentrated on how great things were in the West in their…

Ridicule by media critics has apparently made some headway against the business press's annoying habit of describing bad news about the economy as having occurred "unexpectedly." Now they seem to be reserving the "U-word" for unexpected improvements, which haven't been seen very much during the past seven-plus years. Instead, reacting to today's bad news from the National Association of Realtors…

During a report promoting U.S. companies expanding business in Cuba, correspondent Margaret Brennan also lamented a downside: “Cuba remains one of the few countries in the world left virtually untapped by American corporations due to the long running trade embargo....But visitors like Manuel Leone fear that an influx of big businesses will endanger Cuba's unique charm.”

Plenty of conservatives would concur with Daily Kos writer Mark Sumner that Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is a fascist. They certainly would not agree with Sumner’s belief that the GOP as a whole has become increasingly aligned with fascism “since at least 1994.” Sumner contended in a Sunday article that beginning in “the time of the Gingrich,” Republicans “realized they could…

There was a serious case of selective amnesia induced by liberal bias on Thursday's CNN Newsroom as host Carol Costello oddly complained about women voters having labels like "soccer moms" and "welfare queens" applied to them while men supposedly escape such labeling. But just barely a week ago on her show, Costello herself asked about "angry white men" supporting Donald Trump.

The government's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that consumer prices fell 0.2 percent in February. Lower prices should be good news, right? Wrong, at least according to Martin Crutsinger at the Associated Press. Crutsinger's Wednesday dispatch also managed to ignore the fact that even the supposedly low inflation seen during the past 12 months has eaten up most of workers' very…

In a Monday afternoon post which gets close to taking pleasure in the serious economic decline in the heart of the coal mining industry in West Virginia, CNN Money's Patrick Gillespie observed, based on Hillary Clinton's recent remarks about coal miners' jobs, that she "has no love for coal companies." But in Gillespie's world, what Mrs. Clinton said doesn't matter, because "Clinton won't have…

The business press's determination to convince the public that weak economic news is really strong seemingly knows no bounds. Today, shortly after the Federal Reserve's Industrial Production report for February showed a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent decline — worse than expectations of -0.3 percent — the Associated Press pretended in its headline and in reporter Christopher Rugaber's first…